Have you noticed when using a traditional SWOT or PEST analysis what you get? I guarantee you will find threats, problems and weaknesses. It’s useful to ensure everyone in the group is clear about them, it's relatively easy to find the problems. Through our approach we also apply Appreciative Inquiry processes to reconnect people to their organisations and their customers.

The Appreciative Inquiry process provides a framework for managing and reinforcing the interplay between group or business strengths, aspirations, opportunities and results. It’s all about building strategic capacity and performance improvement.

In Lean Thinking we aim for perfection and value add, flow and pull. In Six Sigma we reduce defects and variation aiming for better quality. We facilitate using an optimistic an realistic model of the future state. Our approach is balanced and geared toward what is most likely, what is most desirable and what is most achievable

When reviewing your future business directions, consider the most useful processes available. What you focus on expands. A business focus need not be on problems, competition and threats, move beyond traditional paradigms and move into the reality that business cycles have peaks and troughs, they are normal. Now is a good time to do some ground work, review, reprioritise, refocus and results will come. We are here to help you.

The course of your life whether it be business or personal is determined by…

The relationships you form

The decisions you make

The actions you take

Each has the potential to change the course of your life.

"Success is when I add value to myself, Significance is when I add value to others".....( John C Maxwell)

In uncertain times, teams and business' need to start thinking about being more significant. Focussing on success maybe too short-sighted. There are big mountains out there. We help you climb them, get to the top and feel the difference. Hear what we are saying?

Facilitators and Coaches provide a better climate for growth and greater significance...

We use and recommend the Team Managements Systems Preference Profile as a robust and accurate instrument to measure work preferences and ways of relating with others, how decisions are made, how things are organised and how pepole like to give and receive information.

The personal Team Management Profile (TMP) highlights an individual's major and two related areas of work preferences on the Margerison-McCann Team Management Wheel.

Controller-Inspector - Strong on control; Detail-oriented; Low need for people contact; An inspector of standards and procedures

Upholder-Maintainer - Conservative, loyal, supportive; Personal values important; Strong sense of right and wrong; Work motivation based on purpose

The ease of this assessment is it only takes about 20-30 minutes to complete on-line.

It's a proven fast and accurate way of assessing and predicting work preferences. It benefits you by understanding your preferences, or lack of, to choose more suitable types of work, modify your own expectations or by sharing results across a team to get a better fit. People, perform better at what they prefer. The data can be used to get a group dialogue occurring and to make team changes.

TMS is used by over a million people in leading organisations (ANZ, Sony, Mobil Oil, American Express, BHP Billiton to name a few),

Benefits include:

Translated into 20 languages

Applied by people from over 160 countries worldwide

Extensively researched, and research and translation programs are ongoing

A simple, practical and research-based system to:

Improve the productivity of any team

Identify and manage critical tasks

Generate engagement and harness the talent of the team

Create a common language that can cut through inherent differences

RELEVANT Developed with and for leaders and their teamsFOCUSED Helps individuals and teams to maximise their potentialPROVEN Twenty years ongoing validated research into what makes high-performing teams IMMEDIATE Can be understood and used by everyone straight awayMEMORABLE Sophisticated information presented in simple visual models POSITIVE Non-threatening: all about strengths, mutual respect and constructive relationshipsFLEXIBLE For individuals, teams and organisations

After completing the assessment online, the client receives a 5000 word report outling preferences and areas that assist them to be more aware of their own communication styles and that of others. It often becomes the way of breaking down barriers and deepening emotional intelligence in a team.

"We must redesign processes if we seek perfection for our customers. They simply must add value, anything else is just waste"

Small Business Lean Initiative has Sights on Leaning International Industry Leaders

I’m posting a quick message about the power of Lean Thinking and how I’m helping a small specialised business going lean in their own processes, automating wherever they can and also aiming to lean an international peak body to improve efficiencies in quality of service. I am unable share any commercial details. That’s business, but I will share some insights with you which I believe are helpful.

It goes like this.... I was consulting with a client recently and we were discussing their proposal that was being presented to an international agency. This proposal if accepted will transform a performance culture, best practice and quality standards internationally. This result will revolutionise a quality control industry and insure its future sustainability.

Without saying too much, leaning the process will essentially transform out-dated existing quality improvement systems. It has taken the new and younger blood to ask questions…. the tough questions of ….“Why do it this way, couldn’t we do it better, here is the alternative, these are the benefits, here is a new process, can we test it?”

The challenge is the proposal has to be accepted by an international committee. I ‘Il keep you posted in the year ahead how we get ahead.

Lean is a key strategy, but don’t be fooled in to using it alone without all your other business processes.

When you Lean one process, it is likely that downstream might need reviewing as well. Lean needs to go enterprise wide for real benefit. I've seen it fail miserably in some departments like healthcare because one department does not lean all areas involved with the client journey. Additionally, not all staff are adequately engaged. Generally governance from the top is simply lacking.

One popular misconception is that lean is suited only for manufacturing. Not true. I’ve seen it used in small business, manufacturing, IT, HR, importing and complex environments like healthcare. I see Lean principles used widely in the biggest retail giant in the world. Just look at E-bay. At E-bay it’s an automated lean machine generating more site searches than Google in 2012.

Lean can be tailored and applied in every business and every process. It even applies in my household. Although the 5S techniques could do with some improving in the kids bedrooms, and okay….the garden shed to. Yes, I’m striving for perfection, it's a continuous improvement journey.

Lean is not a tactic or a cost reduction program, it’s a by-product of changing the business culture of thinking and acting as an entire organization. It has many proven quality improvement processes backing it.

Three takeaways today. Purpose, Process, People

If you are thinking more into Lean Thinking read the authors Womack and Jones, Lean Enterprise, 2nd Edition. It’s a useful book. The authors note that managers and executives that embarked on Lean transformations think about three fundamental business issues that should guide the transformation of the entire organization:

Purpose: What customer problems will the business solve to achieve its own purpose of prospering?

Process: How will the business assess each major value stream to make sure each step is valuable, capable, available, adequate, flexible, and that all the steps are linked by flow, pull, and levelling?

People: How can the business insure that every important process has someone responsible for continually evaluating that value stream in terms of business purpose and lean process? How can everyone engaging with or in lean terms (touching) the value stream be actively engaged in operating it correctly and continually improving it?

Lean needs to be tailored. The best way to experience it is to have a short workshop facilitated in workplace with your work processes. With you we will map your processes, look at bottle necks, queues, delays and so on. Then take it from there.

Mapping the journey or process is amazing. It’s like “Learning to See” how you do things in business. It’s an eye opener and you may go away scratching your head asking, “what the… why do we do that, it doesn’t make sense.” Remember many processes are inherited and never really planned or evaluated. Here is your opportunity to break the cycle. Add value… that’s your job.

We have a team of Lean or what we call Redesign experts who can provide customized training. One on one, or in small groups. Our Lean approach is a systems approach. Lean combined with coaching, facilitation, good team management, business excellence and good governance is required.

Our business is inspiring results in your business.

The approach to Lean is it’s a transformational process. That seems to resonate better with clients. They get it, they know something is going to happen, it has an emotion attached to it and it provides an image of a better future. Feel free to discuss how we can help your organisation big or small. We can all improve.

Empowerment… sounds a bit all new age, feel good, tree hugging stuff, or a tokenistic gesture of business profiteers of the new millennia. Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, I am a fan of the concept, It makes good business sense.

My thought is it’s here to stay, people are your power in the business. Give them appropriate power, along they go and along you go. Group Empowerment needs better understanding.

When I am working with new clients I seek out what level of empowerment are we talking about, what does this mean, how will it be communicated and how will we know it?

It’s very common for groups to assume they have final say in making a decision while management is merely asking for their opinion as input to a decision that managers be making later. Ever felt like that, ever seen it happen, ever heard people tell you something like this???

I experienced this confusion first hand 3 months ago, when a high level group thought they had power to make decisions over a project….. uh uh, the CEO did. Sorry team, no project, 6 months of planning work squashed. The mood was doom and gloom and there were a few other strong adjectives shared around.

Here it is…..It’s essential that you clarify the level of empowerment at which a decision is being made and communicate that explicitly to the group at the start of any decision-making discussion. Yes it takes courage and you might cop a spray, but be warned, if you don’t, the backlash will be far worse. Ingrid Bens discusses 4 empowerment levels in her facilitation practice.

4 Empowerment Levels

Directive: Level 1 - this refers to decisions made by management without input from employees. Employees are informed of the decision and expected to comply.

Consultative: Level 2 - this is a decision made by management after seeking input from employees. Employees are consulted but have no actual say in the final decision and are expected to comply. An employee focus group is an example of this decision.

Participative: Level 3 - this type of decision involves employees discussing and recommending a course of action, but unable to act without gaining final approval. Problem-solving workshops are often set up as level III activities.

Delegative: Level 4 - in this type of decision the group has been given full authority to make a decision and implement action plans without having to seek further approvals.

Tip 1, ensure you and the group know what level they are empowered.Tip 2, let go of people control, empower others, empower yourself

One of the keys to your success is to have a neutral party facilitate the partnership.

Partnerships, Get Less Pain and More Pleasure

"As you probably already know, the wrong partnership whether it is professional or personal can be far worse than no partnership at all."

There are a few important points to consider when starting a partnership. Firstly, you must decide if it is right for you, your business or project.

If the members of a partnership essentially do the same thing, it's almost inevitable that one will be hard-working and have more commitment than the other. Often, that party becomes resentful for the additional time they put in. I know this because I have experienced it for over two decades. It becomes a push/pull relationship and unfortunately this results in tension.

The key is that the partnership must be something that you both need and couldn't be done by you.

As we operate in the Brave New World paradigm, partnerships will need to be built on solid foundations to withstand the changing values in our workforce and global economics,

Our projects, our business and production will be outsourced to more competitive players eager to take on the big companies. Remember all big companies start out small. The smaller ones have fewer overheads, less risk, have lower to fall and are more flexible in structure.

Consider your real partnerships in your business.

Consider the stakeholder partnerships, customer partnerships, supplier partnerships, training and industry partnerships. Are these partnerships operating based on common values, principles, vision and goals?

Are they developed on the mutually beneficial relationships, is your success their success?

Healthy partnerships work hard to help the other party succeed. They give without hidden agendas.

Be warned this may work, but the wisdom to lead a project to build partnerships will increase your future sustainability and ability to sustain outcomes. There is a big difference between output and outcome.

It’s simple, think of compounding interest, that’s what your projects should be like. Build them into projects where the outcomes of the partnership are long term, not short term.

Alliancing is another matter especially on large scale multibillion dollar projects. Whilst facilitating an alliance between a number of multinational construction companies it was clear that the fundamentals were not addressed at start up. However, the Program Manager did have the foresight to hire me to address some of the issues. The reality is, when the tender is won, the work gets started. Then I'm hired because the fundamentals were not addressed correctly.

If however you do decide to form a partnership or alliance, give me a call and we can meet to discuss what might best work for your project or business.

One of the keys is to have a neutral party facilitate the partnership. Let's face it..... It is more risky when you don’t have someone helping you to get it right.

A major risk if you don’t partner, you will lose your staff quickly to your competitor, (your customers…your profit).

People jump ship due to pleasure or pain, I know which one I prefer in a partnership….

Give away time of the week!!! Generosity is one of our business virtues so here I go…

Free consultation questions we are sharing with you. If you like the questions refer people back to our Blog. Or just call us……learn what your competitors are finding out.

What is it that motivates our business to partner?

Whose benefit is it really for?

What is the problem that needs to be addressed?

What is the opportunity that can be harnessed?

What can we offer them?

What can they offer us?

What are the foundations or cornerstone of a mutually beneficial partnership?

What are the shared values, principles, goals and responsibilities?

How will we define, monitor and measure our partnership success?

What do we stand to lose if a partnership is not developed?

So if you need help thinking through a partnership, an alliance, a collaborative or a network, please contact us.

Inspiring Excellence.... Achieving Bottom Line ResultsI was asked via the blog to make more resources available on Quality. What a huge task. So I’m making an effort this week to do so with this months blog. I hope that you find it useful. Tell me if you do or if you don’t. l’ll start from simple then move to complex as the blog grows. So make sure you subscribe to rss feeds.

Case Study

In our company we operate business processes to deliver quality. That is, the customer gets what the customer needs based on their business requirements and based on what they perceive value to be.

I’ll be transparent and start off with the basics. I have a background as Quality Manager managing healthcare accreditation, service delivery, innovation and a long background in the human service industry.

Quality is the core to our success. Our mantra is, less is more. Our business is not going to be all things to all customers. That’s fine, it’s just not the way we do business. We will take a share of business out there and service you, our customer to the quality you expect. We all have a choice, that’s the one we made.

What makes sense to our business is that our business is like a wheel of the car.

Sometimes it moves slow, other times not all and sometimes very quickly. I accept that it’s my responsibility as the driver. Our business wheel has defined spokes. Imagine a wheel on your car. Essentially the wheel moves forward when the engine is running and fuelled. Yes I know… wheels can go backwards, I know. That’s not the direction our gears are in. Central to the wheel is the business engine.

I’ll be truthfully honest, the whole car needs tune ups and servicing to keep in order. How far between tune ups is depending on driving conditions and so on…

1. Commitment to excellence2. Build a culture around service3. Business principles4. Measurement of the important things

Our companyhas 12 business principles or spokes we consider important to delivering a quality business, they are our enablers:

1. Focus on customer and employee satisfaction 2. Create and develop leaders and employees3. Build and enable individual accountability4. Align behaviours and attitudes with goals and values5. Communicate at all levels, timely, effectively and appropriately6. Recognise and reward success continuously7. Connect, share, learn, and improve continuously8. Innovate to make a difference by helping others succeed in their goals9. Research and develop new ideas to provide the best evidence based services10. Deliver fair, equitable and ethical services11. Provide socially and environmentally responsible services12. Deliver sustainable solutions and services

Our company focuses on Performance Results, we focus on 6 key areas

Service

Quality

People

Finance

Growth

Innovation

Central to our business is the fundamental purpose of being in business, to serve other businesses.

Core to our business is our engine, that is... it is maintained and fuelled by 4 key drivers

Meaning

Purpose

Motivation

Autonomy

Those who understand quality get what the customer and employee really wants.